


When The Rain Stops

by TheRangress



Category: Cosmere - Brandon Sanderson, Stormlight Archive - Brandon Sanderson
Genre: Cuddling & Snuggling, M/M, canon provides the hurt I provide the comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-19
Updated: 2017-04-19
Packaged: 2018-10-21 01:36:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10674999
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheRangress/pseuds/TheRangress
Summary: No one can hide forever. Eventually, you have to let someone see you.





	When The Rain Stops

Kaladin knocked softly on the door, and was answered by a low grunt. The door opened with a creak.

Renarin shut himself out of sight, hidden even from thought, during highstorms. It was his way. Kaladin understood that, burying away weakness where none could see. It ached and it deepened the cracks in you, but it was better than letting them see you.

If they saw your cracks, they would tear you apart, or worse. They would pity you.

“I brought you water,” he said, stepping inside and shutting the door behind him. They were imposing, heavy doors. Beyond them, the slight figure of Renarin sat on a cot in a grand stone hall. Sunbeams came through rows of windows, illuminating dust in the air, and Renarin.

“Captain.” Renarin looked up, brushing his hair from his face. Half of it stayed, glowing in the light.

“Bright… Renarin.” He looked away. Something caught in his throat, the way it always did when Renarin called him captain. He said the word as if it were prayer. As if Kaladin himself were something holy.

They said nothing, so Kaladin moved to sit on the edge of the cot, handing Renarin the glass. He held it in both hands, didn’t drink yet.

The sunlight caught in the tear stains running down Renarin’s cheek, and Kaladin pretended he didn’t see.

Renarin slowly sipped at the glass. “Thank you,” he mumbled.

Kaladin nodded and stood to go. Long fingers tightly grabbed his wrist.

“No.”

It was a moment before Renarin released him. “I mean… I mean…”

“You mean I’m not bothering you,” Kaladin offered. He sat back down.

“You’re not. You don’t need to go.”

They sat almost the entire cot apart. Renarin slid a blanket off his shoulder, letting it join a few others in a pile around him.

Kaladin wanted to say something, but knew nothing to say. Words usually came easily to him— not around Renarin. He felt like a fool.

This ache was because Renarin was a prince, because Renarin followed him anyway. Because Renarin was nervous, Renarin was shy. Renarin was awkward, and couldn’t take a compliment, and quietly mumbled about how he’d never _had_ friends.

Because Renarin was intoxicating as the sky, and there was a highstorm in Kaladin’s chest.

“It’s good,” Renarin said, gesturing to the cup he held.

“The water?”

“Er. Yes.” Renarin forced a small smile and took another sip. His hair was a mess, golden locks stuck to his nose.

Thoughtlessly, Kaladin reached out to push hair from Renarin’s eyes. His fingertips brushed along Renarin’s soft skin.

He pulled back from the touch.

“I’m sorry,” Kaladin said, clenching his hand into a tight fist. “I— I’m sorry.”

Renarin ran his fingers through his hair and looked away. He took a long breath, deep and slow.

“Your hair,” Kaladin said, half a mumble to himself, “it was… you’re so beautiful in the light like this.”

He hadn’t said that. Had he? The violent blush running to the tips of Renarin’s ears said he had.

“You’re more beautiful,” Renarin rushed out, before standing and swiftly pacing away, towards the windows.

“More… What?” Kaladin blinked.

“Beautiful,” Syl offered, reclining in the air beside him.

He glared at her, and she only tossed her hair.

Renarin stared out the window, seeming to pay Kaladin no mind.

“The weather seems lovely,” he called. “Not raining anymore…”

“Yes,” said Kaladin, “it tends not to, after a highstorm.”

“Yes.” Renarin nodded. “Yes, since it stops raining.”

“I cannot believe this,” Syl said.

“Be quiet.”

“Why should I?” She leaned back, letting her hair flow in the wind. “If you’re going to be ridiculous, I don’t see why I can’t point it out.”

“How am I being ridiculous?”

Syl tilted her head, one eyebrow raised high. “You and Renarin finally start being honest instead of just staring at each other, and then… you say that it usually doesn’t rain once it _stops raining_.”

“Well,” Kaladin said. She was right, and he felt like a fool, but he wouldn’t admit that. “It usually doesn’t.”

“You’re hopeless,” Syl said, “a lost case. The mighty Kaladin Stormblessed, too scared to tell a boy he likes him. Pathetic.”

“I am not pathetic.” He turned away from her. “I’m not afraid.”

He was terrified.

“Yes, you are. How long is this going to go on? Just be honest. How bad can it be?”

“I love you,” said Renarin.

He looked up, seeming to realize a moment too late he’d spoken, and then fiercely turned to the window again. He looked quite ready to fling himself out of it.

“Well,” said Syl. “I guess that settles that.”

“You what?” Kaladin stood.

“Please don’t make me say it again,” Renarin mumbled. He faced away, but the blush reached all the way to his ears. “We could pretend I haven’t said it at all, perhaps?”

Renarin’s hands were fluttering again with anxiety. Kaladin took silent steps across the stone floor until he reached Renarin’s side. When the hand touched his shoulder, Renarin jumped.

Kaladin could feel himself blushing red hot.

“Renarin,” he said, truths aching in his chest. He could have said _I love you too, love you desperately_ , yet there was a truth beyond that. “You can’t. Please, before you wind up as dead as the rest.”

“Before I wind up dead,” he repeated slowly. Renarin bowed his head, letting his hair fall into his face. “You think— think you’ll lead me to my death?”

“That’s where it always leads. I can’t— let it happen again.”

“I’d be dead _without_ you.” He turned his head further away, twisting his hands together. “Without you— I’d have lost my family, my father and my brother. I’d be Highprince, a useless and mad Highprince. Alethkar itself would probably have fallen by now.”

Kaladin was silent. He reached another hand for Renarin’s shoulder, this time met with no answer at all.

“That’s not— that isn’t _it._ ” Renarin shook his head and buried it in his hands. “The day I came to you, a foolish prince playing at being common: That’s the day you saved my life. Without that, without Bridge Four, I would have… after ten years of begging, I had finally gotten the only thing I ever wanted, and it was _screaming_ and I was just as broken as I had always been, and the visions— I knew I wasn’t mad by then, I knew I was an abomination.”

He took a deep breath, putting a hand atop Kaladin’s.

“The others speak of you the same way. I think I can say for us all that after all you’ve done, every one of us would die gladly for you.”

“And that’s exactly what I’m afraid of.” Kaladin pulled away, turning his back and wrapping his arms around himself. “So many people, all happy to die for me, and they did and it changed nothing. Just more death. I bring death.”

“I’ve seen you die.” Renarin’s words hung in the air. “I’ve seen you torn to pieces, skull shattered but _face_ almost intact. I’ve seen worse. I’ve seen you standing with a storm around you, your eyes bright red, and then you kill me.”

“Then pay attention to what you see.”

“Today it was my father.” Kaladin forced himself to breathe. “Not dead. I’ve had nightmares of that all my life; it doesn’t scare me now. Today I saw him kill me.”

He turned to Renarin, whose face was impassive. Kaladin’s arms slowly fell to his side, and Renarin shrugged.

“I’m not entirely sure what my point is, I just felt I should say that. Maybe I’m just… scared.” He forced a tight smile. “Not for myself, of course. For you, and for him.”

“But you—” Where were the words? He had nothing but fear.

There had been a fight, once, between Bridge Four and a few young lighteyes men. Renarin had been first into the fray, and Kaladin remembered seeing him grin with bloody lips.

It was so easy to imagine that face stiffened and pale.

“I don’t know what I’m saying.” Renarin put a hand on the wall, head bowed. “I don’t know what I— I love you. I know that. I joined Bridge Four and swore myself to _you_ , and I intend to follow that vow to my death.”

“But I need you to live,” he said, voice frail.

Renarin shook his head, hair falling to cover his face. “Captain, I still want to die. I thought, perhaps… I have things to live for, yes. I have my duty, Bridge Four, and you— and I’ll live for it, but I’d rather die for it.”

His mouth was dry. Kaladin shut his eyes. “I understand,” he said. “I understand.”

He barely even breathed until Renarin took his hands, holding them fast, brushing his thumbs along them. Kaladin’s eyes opened.

“Am I being too forward?” Renarin asked.

He was so earnest.

Kaladin found himself laughing, and leaning into Renarin. “No,” he said, putting one arm around Renarin’s waist, “thank you. I don’t know what I’m saying either, Renarin. I’m afraid too.”

They buried themselves in each other’s arms, and Kaladin found himself relaxing into the warmth and pressure.

“I couldn’t even tell Bridge Four this,” he murmured into Renarin’s shoulder, “and yet I couldn’t stop myself from telling you.”

“I won’t tell them,” Renarin said, so earnest again that Kaladin smiled.

This was wrong, and that rang out within him, but this was _safe._ He could put aside his fear, just for a moment.

“You’re crying,” Renarin said, pulling back. Kaladin raised a hand to his face, wiping away hot tears. “Did I do something wrong?”

 “No,” Kaladin said, voice rough with tears, “no, no, you’ve done something right. So right.”

He pulled Renarin in again, pressed his face into Renarin’s neck and _laughed_ again.

“I’d rather die for you,” he whispered into Renarin’s hair. “I’ve been living for others since I was a child, and I wish I could die for them instead too.”

Renarin didn’t speak; of course he didn’t. His hands, one kneading between Kaladin’s shoulderblades and the other in his hair, those were enough. They were more than words could ever be.

“You’re too beautiful,” Kaladin said, his thoughts as hot and liquid as tears. “You burn, Renarin. So warm and so bright. They broke you and so you hide, but they couldn’t put out your love and your anger.”

He pressed a kiss to Renarin’s pulse, and took a moment just to feel it.

“You act as if you’re not afraid.” Renarin was _rocking_ him, and Kaladin choked on how simple and sweet and earnest it all was. “You love without hesitation. You _fight_ without hesitation— for you, they’re the same, aren’t they? You’re so… storms, you’re so… _storms_.”

“Captain,” Renarin whispered, through tears of his own.

“I don’t know what to do.” He weighed heavily in Renarin’s arms. “I can’t give up and I can’t keep going. I’m afraid, Renarin. How are we meant to endure this? You living in fear of the future, and I of the past. I’m storming tired, and…”

“And we’ll keep going,” Renarin whispered. “Even when it means dragging our broken souls through the battlefield.”

“We have no choice.”

They were nestled together as two halves of a broken whole, standing achingly still.

Kaladin’s breath was calming. The tears were gone, leaving behind the ache of shame. He shouldn’t be weeping in Renarin’s arms. He was too strong for this.

“Come,” Renarin said, pulling away and tugging at Kaladin’s arm. He allowed himself to be led, until they sat again side by side on the cot.

The blankets had been discarded, and now they were draped around Kaladin. So were Renarin’s arms.

“This is all I have to offer,” Renarin said, voice burning low. “I’m sorry, Kaladin.”

“No.” He took a deep breath, then opened his arms. He pulled Renarin in, then gently collapsed so they lay in each other’s embrace.

He let out a breath, feeling Renarin’s delicate hands on his waist. Feeling Renarin beneath his hands, slender but all taut muscle.

“This,” Kaladin whispered, feeling tears on his eyelashes again.

He wasn’t sure why. He wasn’t sure why any of this.

Renarin’s breath was hot against his lips. He moved so their foreheads were pressed together, lips just barely brushing against each other. “This,” he agreed.

It was right, and it was enough.


End file.
